White not Black
by MegKF
Summary: Ianto awakens after the events of Day 4 to find himself in a white room. X-over with Buffy and Charmed.


_Buffy is owned by Mutant Enemy, Torchwood is owned by BBC, and Charmed is owned by Viacom I guess. No copyright infringement is intended. Fanfiction is, in my opinion, free advertisement. There are many things I've bought because I enjoyed fanfiction that crossed into a new fandom. I encourage everyone to purchase these products. _

_This takes place after/during Torchwood: Children of Earth and years after Buffy ended, I've never read the comic so it may or may not fit that timeline. And after Charmed ended._

** White not Black**

Ianto woke with a start. He looked around confused. White not black surrounded him. He frowned, he was near certain he'd died, there was no other way he'd ever have told Jack he loved him otherwise. He probably wouldn't have even admitted it to himself. But… If he wasn't dead where was he? He rose up from the bed he'd been lying on and cautiously approached the open doorway. Ianto peered out the doorway only to jump back as one of the people gathered just a dozen feet from the room looked right in time to see him. He reached for his absent gun as the man appeared before him. Ianto backed up into the corner.

"Hey new guy," the man said cheerfully. "It's Ianto right? I'm calling you the new guy but I've only been here three days so I'm pretty new too. Maybe I should have called you the newest guy… By the way, I'm Xander. I don't normally babble, that's my friend Willow, she's an expert babbler. I'm still getting used to this whole limbo-ish existence, so I think I'm excused for the babbling. Is limbo-ish a word? Probably not, even after all these years Giles still complains that none of us really know English. 'Course he's from tweedland like you. Well actually you're Welsh right? Can I still say it's tweedland when you're not English British? I guess it doesn't matter. I gotta say it was pretty brave of you to walk right up to the aliens like that, that's something I would have done, maybe. Although I probably would have tried to get the building evacuated in case they blew it up. I was not expecting them to virus you all. 'Virus you all' sounds weird… That was an awesome love confession though."

Ianto stared at the man as he rambled on. Maybe he could get him on track, "Limbo?"

"Limbo-ish," he frowned. "I've never given this speech, the old guys normally do this, but everyone except those in training are off trying to protect their charges. Nothing like waking up to be surrounded by half a dozen old guys in robes, well actually one of them was a little kid…"

"What?"

"Right… Speech," he looked up for a moment as if seeking help. "I do give a different speech a lot, this one isn't that dissimilar. The world is older than you have ever been told. It didn't start as paradise, it was hell, literally. A lot of stuff happened but the way was made for mankind by forcing most demons out of this plane of existence. Yes demons are real, you deal with things and beings from other time and space, others deal with things and beings from other dimensions. There remain those with the gifts to make the battle equal for that which remained. Slayers and Witches. Slayers have Watchers, which is what I was before I died, and Witches have Whitelighters. Whitelighters were people who did great good in life and were offered the chance when they died to do different good. Not a lot of people qualify for this gig, it's also rare for more than one qualified person dying in the same year, much less week like us."

"We died and are being offered afterlife jobs?"

"Essentially."

"I don't believe you."

"Why not? I was watching when you died, you can't believe you weren't killed."

"All my experience with those who died reported that there wasn't only black when they died."

Xander blushed, but in a manly way darn it! "That's the fault of my friends and me. You see we brought our friend Buffy back to life, but she remembered her 3 months in Heaven. She didn't take being back on Earth very well, so the Powers That Be made it so people who died wouldn't remember Heaven when they returned, even if they were there for only a moment, after that."

"But Jack's died a lot of times."

"Well, when did he die the first time?"

"… In the future."

"That would be why."

Ianto blinked, he needed coffee, he couldn't even think of something sarcastic to say, "Alright then. So what does being a Whitelighter mean?"

"Bascially you're a guardian angel for witches. Sometimes they'll know about you and sometimes they won't. You get cool healing powers and can hear your charges calling for you from almost anywhere. You also get cool teleporting abilities. The only down side is after your funeral you're not supposed to see the people you knew in life anymore. The funeral thing is so you can have closure, hearing them say goodbye to you and all. Normally those you knew in life aren't aware of the supernatural anyway. I'm unique, it's very rare for a Whitelighter to have gotten noticed for this job actually dealing with the supernatural. Actually you're pretty unique too, I think you're the first guy to be noticed fighting ET. Still, some of my friends are witches. My best friend is like the most powerful witch outside a coven, apparently coven witches can pool power or something. Again, I didn't get the full intro because of the whole aliens high jacking children."

Ianto blinked again, "I thought you said you didn't babble."

"I don't normally. I think it's the whole those responsible for my death aren't dealt with yet."

"How'd you die?"

"I was in Cleveland, hunting demons with my team when one of them froze. She was the only one young enough to be affected by whatever the aliens are doing. I saved her from the demon she was fighting at the cost of my own life. I'd do it again you know. I'd do anything to protect my girls and keep them safe, it's why I was chosen to be a Whitelighter. The organization I work with now has them in safe houses until it stops. Anyway, since we found out who was dealing with the aliens, we've been following your team. It's like watching you on television. We newbies aren't allowed to go back to earth until we finish training so all we can do is watch. Want to see the rest? It's what we're doing out there," Xander nodded back outside the room towards where he was watching.

Ianto nodded, feeling strangely calm, and followed Xander from the room.

**End – White not Black**

REVIEWS INSPIRE ME

_Okay… Not my best writing but not my worst either. I feel like I couldn't get Ianto in character after the first part… I think I did okay with my Xander though. _

_I wanted to read a story with Ianto as a whitelighter and couldn't find any. So one thing led to another and now there is at least one. Properly inspiring reviews might make me turn this into a series or never consider it… _


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